Dairy farm helps Hukum live like a master

For Hukum Bahadur Basnet of Lalmatiya village in Dang district of Nepal, one theory holds strongly – live as a master, not as slave. Having spent many years serving others in the past, he says “working for others never gave me true satisfaction. I also worked in India, but I was never happy.” With his hard work, and support from the Micro-Enterprise Development Programme (MEDEP), now he can live as a master. Basnet now owns 15 cows in his dairy.

Highlights

MEDEP has developed over 60,000 micro-entrepreneurs and created about 62,000 sustainable jobs.

The average MEDEP micro-entrepreneur earns over twice what he/she earned before coming into contact with the programme.

Eighty percent of MEDEP enterprises continue to do business - a high success rate that reflects the strength of this programme.

“My first true happiness came in 2008 when I established a piggery firm with MEDEP’s support”, he said. With his own business, he was now self-sustained, and looked for more opportunities. Eventually, after a few ups-and-downs, he started a dairy farm by investing an amount of ten lakh rupees (approx. $10,000). His decision to start a dairy farm was very opportune; he received support from his fellow villagers because cow is considered a holy animal in our country.

Today his dairy farm produces 50 to 55 liters of milk every day. He sells the milk at Rs. 40 per litre to neighbors and at Rs. 30 per litre to the village dairy. With this, his earning is around Rs. 50 thousand (approx. $500) a month. He is also exploring options to widen the market and increase his income.

MEDEP provided Basnet with entrepreneurship training, skill training related to animal health, facilitation to access micro-credit, exposure visits, co-operatives management training for managing dairy cooperative, and also technology and equipment support during the initial stages of his entrepreneurship. “MEDEP’s support has been crucial in enabling me to start and smoothly run my enterprise”, Basnet says. Encouraged by the success of his enterprise, he has also been advocating for entrepreneurship in his family members and society.

Since it began, MEDEP has helped to create over 60,000 micro-entrepreneurs. The average MEDEP micro-entrepreneur earns over twice what he/she earned before coming into contact with the programme.